Resources

This section presents a number of resources useful to PL/I and OpenVMS users alike.  Please report any broken links or suggestions to webmaster@kednos.com.

PL/I Software

The following are a collection of links to various websites offering utilities and libraries written in PL/I:

• The PL/I Software Repository is collection of PL/I source from many contributors and maintained by Robin Vowels.
• The PL/I Language is a website (recently back online) maintained by Peter Flass.  It offers quite a lot of information regarding PL/I including code samples, style guide and manuals.
• The source code for the final release of MULTICS, MR 12.5, is available from the MIT MULTICS History website.  Unfortunately very little, if any, of this code will compile without modification on a modern PL/I compiler.
• Lastly, there are also a large number of PL/I programs and examples under the Examples section.

Mailing Lists & Newsgroups

There exists on the internet a few forums for OpenVMS and PL/I. The following list covers some of the more popular and better known.

• PL1-L is a mailing list that covers the PL/I language in general. It is more targeted towards IBM developers and compilers. To join, visit the listserv website here.
• PLIEDIT - PL/I Editor for Eclipse, as well as offering the Eclipse editor plugin also has a discussion board that includes general PL/I discussion forums.
• comp.lang.pl1 is another forum for discussing PL/I. It is a usenet newsgroup so it can be accessed from either Google or your favourite NNTP client. Again, this is a more IBM centric newsgroup, but still a valuable general PL/I resource.
• comp.os.vms is an OpenVMS specific usenet newsgroup. It can be accessed either via Google or NNTP. There are also some language specific groups, listed here:
  
  • fr.comp.os.vms: a French language newsgroup. Access via Google or NNTP.
  • de.comp.os.vms: a German language newsgroup. Access via Google or NNTP.
• HP's IT Resource Centre (ITRC) includes a moderated, web-based technical forum. It requires registration and covers all HP products, including OpenVMS. With the signal to noise ratio getting worse at newsgroups like comp.os.vms most HP engineers now lurk here.

Games

OpenVMS isn't typically known for being a premier gaming platform, at least not these days. The following are a collection of of links (some local) to various games that have been ported to OpenVMS.

• Hexen, Doom, Bomberman and the Simple Directmedia Layer have all been ported to OpenVMS by Alexey Chupahin. They can be found at his website, here.
• Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny have been ported by Tim Sneddon. The software can be found here.
• The OpenVMS Hobbyist website has a few games in it's download section, here.
• The Halls Of ZK, an interactive fiction game set at Digital's Spitbrook facility.
• Lastly, the OpenVMS Freeware CD collection has received many submissions of games over the years.